


Seeds of Discord Part 9

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [10]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Crossover Pairings, F/M, One True Pairing, Sexual Content, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone or something is causing violent riots to erupt all over the U.S., and whatever it is, it wreaks havoc with both Wonder Woman's health and Bruce Banner's ability to keep his rage in check.  </p><p>Diana faces her abductors and learns more about Mr. Backus' endgame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds of Discord Part 9

Diana tries to focus in the gray light of her prison. Gradually, gradually, shapes form: heavy-looking wooden table, an array of daggers and knives, medieval-looking torture devices. The presence of several palm-sized electronic devices assures her that she hasn’t time-traveled. In the corner of the room she notices a video camera. The next thing she realizes is that she is still in civilian clothes. She closes her eyes again and tries to remember what happened. There was a moment on her meditation cushion where she felt blissful nothingness: absence of thought, absence of physical boundaries of her body, almost pure energy. Now she is here. Her feet are still bare, but the slab floor beneath her is warm. Her arms are cuffed and chained above her head. She doesn’t really feel them, aside from the cold heaviness of the shackles. There is a belt and chain around her waist and each ankle as well. She’s reminded for a moment of Andromeda awaiting the Kraken. 

Time passes. A man she recognizes enters the room. “Nyx,” she says. He smiles widely, and she understands she’s given herself away. “And here I thought I was simply getting even with your husband for Sarx,” he replies. “Mr. Backus will be so pleased that I’ve actually brought him Wonder Woman.” There are other men and women in the room with them. The one she called Eris leans against a table and plays with a ceremonial dagger. She walks up to Diana with it, and takes one of her hands, studying it. “Life line, love line—well that one looks deep. She slashes the dagger across Diana’s palm and Diana screams.” Eris smiles. “I liked that!” 

Another man, standing in the back of the room, shakes his head slowly. “It isn’t fun when they can’t fight back,” he says with a sigh. He looks at Eris. “And she’s far too lovely to scar up like that.” He takes a few steps, and he is standing in front of Diana. He studies her bloody hand. “That must hurt, my dear. Here. Let me.” He puts his mouth to the gash in her hand and kisses it. She recoils, even as her hand cools and the wound closes and heals. She jerks her hand back from him. “Phanes,” she says. He bows. “Your Highness.” 

She asks, “So does that make ‘Mr. Backus’ Dionysus?” Phanes shrugs. “Really you weren’t supposed to be here at all, dearest daughter of the goddesses, but Nyx here is angry at how things turned out with his own paramour. It’ll all work out though. Say, when we’re finished killing off your friends and your husband, maybe the big boss will let me keep you as a plaything. He’s all about creating his own playground since Zeus won’t share his, but I’m more interested in entertaining myself. You really do look just like Aphrodite. He leans in toward her face, and whispers, “Nyx is a narrow-minded human being. He fancies that he’ll have some kind of power when our goals are reached. He doesn’t even know our goals. The Concordance Group is simply a means to a greater end.” Diana head butts him. It’s painful. Phanes laughs and kisses her. She bites down on his tongue and he cries out in pain. “Now that I know who you are, don’t think for a minute that I’m letting you out of those shackles. He turns to another man and says, Orzys, when you’re done with her, I need you. 

Diana runs through her memory of pre-Titan history. Phanes was a god of carnality and creation. Makes sense. Orzys…a minor god of misery, if she remembers correctly. Well this certainly is a nightmare if anything else. 

That rage, all that energy that has made her so ill, so tired these past few weeks, solidifies into a small, black ball in her core. Steve was wrong. She is very capable of hatred, and she is more than capable of putting aside her own morals if it suits her. At least, she thinks, she’s capable of giving the impression. Whether it’s rage or fear or hatred, some new emotion is giving her strength, and she is willing to embrace it for now. Even bound this tightly, she will find a way to protect the people she loves and the world to which she belongs. She remembers what Nyx said about Bruce, about how this ironically named group sees him as the ultimate man in a state of his true nature. She recalls Athena’s wisdom—one needn’t be brutish in war. There are wise ways to be violent. She isn’t sure this is an example of wisdom, but it comes from her heart as she says it.

“Touch me again and you will sorely regret it. Artemis Herself will pierce your testicles with poisoned arrows and her hounds will pull out your tongue and devour it. And when she is finished with you, I will stand over you and laugh. I will pour acid down your throat and over your skin, and when you heal I will repeat it. You will wish you were Prometheus devoured by birds, for it is a kind punishment compared to what I will make you endure.” 

Phanes smirks. “I don’t intend to violate you. Not until your own beloved is chained up across from you, paralyzed perhaps, watching. We WANT war, Princess. We are tearing down this world on the way to Mount Olympus itself. When I am through with you, we will allow you to watch us torture your husband. You and Captain America, the almost universal symbols of law and order and freedom, will be corrupted in front of each other. Then he will die, and you will become something else. A symbol for the new world disorder.”

She never really understood the furies before, except for the one time in Sachsenhausen. She understands it now, even more viscerally. Somewhere, deeply buried beneath her anger, she understands that she is feeding off the energy in the room. However, she also understands how love can lead you down the darkest paths for the right reasons, and that she wouldn’t necessarily care about the consequences to her own soul. “If I never have Steve back again,” she thinks, “then this will be all I have left. No humanity, no morals, no love—I shall be all hatred, all fury. She is having trouble thinking past the hypothetical plans into hypothetical consequences. “Do you hear me, Phanes, Dionysus, anyone who dares contemplate your plans? I will make all of you beg the gods to give you mortality so that you can die. I will make sure you know you are responsible for the tearing asunder of everything important to you. And when I’m satisfied that you have all been completely broken, irreparably shattered and reduced to well past nothingness, I will watch you writhe in your own putrid anguish and I will laugh. And when I tire of watching, I will be able to rest, and I will be at peace, and finally I will be able to die and go to Hell.”

Phanes turns around and smiles. “I really like her,” Orzys exclaims. “I haven’t even done anything to her yet.” 

“She really is quite sweet,” he agrees. “Enjoy her then.” He guides Eris from the room and shuts the door.


End file.
